TRIPLE SONNET FOR LEAVING MY COUNTRY OF BIRTH, BY RACHAEL LIN WHEELER

                                after Dorothy Chan

Night, and every shadow ruptures—folds
                 into the corners of the darkest garden.
In times like this, I think of how a rabbit’s
                 birth is called a kindling. Brief,
the light: unwound then coiled. Let it strike
                 each paw print in the empty field of snow.
The mother’s scent: a predatory call
                 her daughters will be killed by—if not left
behind. And yet, these young, alone, are born both
                 deaf and blind. Crepuscular, the vanish
-ing point. The doe: an imprint of her newborn’s
                 ​slow-burn cry—which is to say, my mouth
lies full of tinder. Grief as burnt ash
                 kissing a palm meant for holding nothing.

                                               *

Palmar’s reflex—a desire to hold—means nothing
more than womb-song emptied of its hum.

                 I am nothing more than moon vine climbing
                 skyward like a prayer for every pyre

moments before its ignition. Mother, an echo.
Mother, the matchsticks. Let her be the shadow

                 of my name, forgotten in the wasteland.
                 I’ve seen it before: even flames of candles,

dependent on their wicks, attempt to run
from their origin, despite. How else

                 can they survive? I do not want to kill
                 the ghosts roving through the valleys of

her distant body—blood so similar
to mine—that I, splintered, have never met.

                                               *

A mine will splinter what it meets: will halve
                 a bed of animal              bones beneath the earth,

                 their dead flesh burning waxen in the dirt.
Above, the flower              carcasses, un-

blooming. Upturned garden buried by the snow
                 and wreckage. To loose              an early memory

                 from its own grave’s a gentle gift. A haunting.
A touch.              I’ll detonate. I’ll excavate

each scrap of the remains. O, rusted mirror,
                 window turned               opaque. The woman’s ghost,

                 my own. I want to fist each absence from
its husk. To learn              the texture of her voice,

of resurrection. From my mouth, language
                 ruptures and I              ​fold into this night​— 

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Rachael Lin Wheeler will attend Washington University in St. Louis as a Howard Nemerov Writing Scholar and is a 2021 Adroit Journal Summer mentee. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Ghost City Review, Hominum Journal, Plum Recruit Mag, FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and SOFTBLOW, and others. Serving as the editorial assistant for EX/POST MAGAZINE, Rachael Lin is also the founder and editor of Vox Viola Literary Magazine. She can be found on Twitter @rachaellin_ or at rachaellinwheeler.com.